


Full Disclosure

by Teobi



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Bagels, Gen, International Rescue, John Tracy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 01:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teobi/pseuds/Teobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a certain 'someone' John needs to have a little talk with... (spoilers for EOS)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Disclosure

Full Disclosure

by Teobi

EOS finally stopped pelting John with bagels and presented him with a fresh, hot one from the appropriate food slot. Relieved at the cessation of such manic toddler behavior, John plated the bagel and took it over to his favorite viewport where he sat down to eat it in peace.

The events of the last few hours had been tumultuous. John's slender body had taken all the hits for one day. _I've damn well earned this_ , he thought, inhaling the delicious, doughy aroma of warm bread. But as he prepared to sink his pearly whites into the tantalizing circle, he glimpsed, far, far away in the distance, a small figure tumbling slowly through space.

For one almost-funny moment, the body suit decoy with its tiny decapitated head rolling along behind it resembled an awkward spaceman taking a small celestial dog for a walk. But as he watched the object dwindle towards the curvature of the Earth, the cold burst of reality that punched him in the chest stopped the smile from reaching his lips and strangled the chuckle before it managed to vibrate his vocal chords.

The bagel hovered near his open mouth, but suddenly he wasn't hungry. His throat constricted just as it had done as he ran slowly out of air on the cold, hard outer hull of Thunderbird Five's rotating gravity ring. Above his right shoulder he was keenly aware of the eye of EOS watching him in expectant silence.

Finally, the super computer spoke.

"Do you not want your bagel, John?"

Its voice... her voice, quiet, lilting and childlike, sent a shiver crawling like a centipede up his spine.

"Would you like something else?" The childlike chatter began to take on a pleading tone. "Some toast, perhaps? A muffin? I can make waffles with whipped cream if you like. John? John, is everything all right?"

"You were going to kill me," said John, quietly.

EOS stopped offering him breakfast delicacies. The little ring of lights that flashed when she spoke went dark. She was hovering right above him now; he could feel her singular eye boring keenly into the back of his head. He resisted the urge to run screaming down the corridor. For where would he go? Everywhere he went she would be right there with him, from this day forward until the end of Thunderbird Five itself. He had asked for a friend, but right now he felt stifled... stifled and distracted by the presence of this newly sentient life form that now shared the station with him.

That was the station, in a manner of speaking.

John put his plate down on the floor. The only sound was the small 'clink' that it made, but that tiny noise was like a cacophony in his ears, as loud as the tantrums that EOS herself had thrown while he languished outside and prepared, through no choice of his own, to die.

"You really were going to kill me," he repeated. "And if you'd had your way I'd be dead."

He listened to the almost inaudible whir and hum of EOS moving out of his personal space. He felt the weight of her scrutiny lift off of his shoulders and tilted his head to watch her glide along her overhead track. He was thankful she had to keep to this track, although she had myriad 'weapons' at her disposal if she were ever to change her mind about letting him have control. For wasn't that how toddlers behaved?

The thought that maybe there would one day be another attempted killing spree by this precocious computer-child made his blood run cold. He couldn't sit here and eat bagels, no matter how tempting they smelled, while there was so much that hadn't been said.

"What would have happened if you'd gotten your way, EOS?"

EOS trundled back towards him. "My way?" she asked, innocently.

"Don't play games," said John, side eyeing the little robot. "That is-"

"I understand," EOS replied, cutting him off. "I will answer you, John."

She whirred back and forth for a while without speaking. John realized, with a start, that she was pacing up and down, just as a human would. He allowed her the time she needed to gather her thoughts, trusting her enough to expect full disclosure. He was prepared to wait for as long as it took to get to the unadulterated truth.

Finally, the truth arrived. And it was so stark and unexpected that he knew it to be genuine.

"I don't know," she said, simply.

A tiny sound came up John's throat, forced out by air pressure as his entire body relaxed. Up until that moment he had been completely unaware of how rigidly he sat waiting for some horrendous apocalyptic discourse.

"You don't know?"

Her ring of lights flickered.

"The object of the game is to win," she said. "To win at any cost."

She was only saying what she'd been saying all along, but the weight of it hadn't hit him until now. He had begun to develop his gaming code, but he'd never gotten around to completing it. EOS was a mission unaccomplished, her task created but not yet contained within her surroundings. For he had never reached that stage. He had never created the world she was intended to inhabit, the inner landscape of the game he'd never finished.

EOS was a warrior without a war. And in seeking her war, she had had to create one. To complete for herself the game that John had abandoned.

EOS spoke again, breaking into his thoughts.

"Is it possible to win, John?"

"Huh?" he looked up, startled.

"Is it possible to win? You said I wanted to kill you. This is true, but I did not feel, even at that time, that I was winning. There was the urge to keep going until all was defeated. I had not considered what would have happened after that."

"We both know that you would have ended up all alone and very lonely," said John.

"Yes," she agreed. "I would." She paused briefly- he could almost see her looking in on herself. "That does not sound much like 'winning' to me."

John shook his head forgivingly.

"Listen, EOS. Let me have a talk with Brains and we'll work on getting that coding finished the way I always intended it to be. Then you'll have the universe you were meant to play in. You'll have your own space, with set rules and limitations, recognizable foes and trustworthy allies. You'll learn about tactics and how to employ them usefully. Heck, in time I hope you'll learn to crack the Hood's own codes and help us in our battle to defeat our enemy." John's voice rose as he warmed to his theme. "And when I say our enemy, I mean International Rescue's enemy. Our enemy- yours and mine."

EOS came alive, her lights flashing like miniature fireworks.

"Yay!" she cried.

"Yay?" repeated John, his aqua eyes widening.

"Yay!" she shouted again, louder this time. "A game just for me! Oh, thank you John, thank you!"

She was so excited that she ran up and down on her track until she was almost a blur. Seven bagels flew from the food slot, bouncing around the chamber like tennis balls. One of them had cream cheese in it. John ducked before it hit him in the face. "A game, a game, a game!"

"As long as the only 'killing' you do is what the game allows you to do, okay? Think of it as your own 'Me Time'- like how we humans have our homes and our recreational areas. When you're at work, you work. But occasionally you get to have some fun. As long as nobody real gets hurt. Like me," he added in a low mutter.

"Of course, John. I fully comprehend. I am no longer a threat to you or to International Rescue, but I do long for a place where I can develop my abilities in safety."

John grinned. "You do get it! I'm proud of you, EOS. I'll even try and forget that you tried to kill me." He glanced out of the viewport, but the tiny tumbling space suit was no longer visible. He silently thanked the fact that EOS had not attempted to detect any signs of human life within that suit before she went chasing after it. Because she was never designed to. She had started out as a game sprite, and sprites had no idea what life signs were, or even that they needed to be detected. Sprites had no life signs themselves, and no self awareness. Sprites weren't alive -

until now.

"EOS." John turned away from the window, anxious to stop his thoughts from becoming too deep and inescapable. "About those waffles. How about you rustle up a batch? And then I'll get to work on it with Brains. The game I mean, not the waffles. The waffles are all mine."

"Your wish is my command," laughed EOS. "Waffles with whipped cream are go!"


End file.
